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Radioactivists

RADIOACTIVISTS is a documentary film project under the German film-makers Julia Leser and Clarissa Seidel. The two of us have been shooting in Tokyo from end-April to mid-May 2011, we have accompanied the rallies and demonstrations within that time, and we have talked to all those critical voices about the current situation: scientists, journalists, activists and bloggers.

The documentary »RADIOACTIVISTS - Protest and Discourse in Japan since Fukushima« wants to explore the Japanese protest culture under the effects of Fukushima and to illuminate the backgrounds of the current movements, protests and critical voices, which keep getting louder, not only in Japan. The situation in Japan made clear that a new phase of political and social fight has just begun, which forces us to act now.

Today, meet three more voices that will be in the movie: Yoshihiko Ikegami and Keisuke Narita.

“As we know, Japan surrendered in World War II after the two atomic bombs were dropped on it. The question is why Japan now has ended up having 54 nuclear power reactors, despite of its experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its people’s fear of nuclear power. […] In the late 1960s, about 1965 or 1966, Japan’s first nuclear power plant came in operation. The elites took 10 years to brainwash Japanese people who used to be against nuclear power, spending a huge amount of money to orchestrate the media. This has been going on to this day.”

YOSHIHIKO IKEGAMI
Primer editor of Gendai Shisô (“Modern Thought”)
Yoshihiko Ikegami is the primer chief editor of the famous philosophical magazine Gendai shisô (現代思想), or „Modern Thought“. As a well-known and respected intellectual living in Toyko, he became very active since 3/11 in criticizing the current situation in Japan. In the online-magazine J-Fissures, he published several articles about this thoughts and fears about the future of Japan and its nuclear policy.

“We want to make our voice heard to our communities, the state of Japan, and the world. We want to make them understand the fact that many people want the nuclear power plants to be stopped immediately. We will try to let them stop those facilities, though I cannot tell if they will do it. We are planning to record the action in some ways, such as, for example, uploading footage of the action to You Tube. It is important to keep this movement going on beyond the May 7 action. Spreading the images of the action may help. There would be many ways of keeping this movement alive.”

KEISUKE NARITA
Activist and Owner of a D.I.Y.-Infoshop in Shinjuku, Tokyo
Keisuke Narita opened an infoshop called Irregular Rhythm Asylum in 2004. He started selling books and zines about D.I.Y.-culture and anarchism, CDs and fair-trade goods. It soon became a place for people to gather and organize concerts and political actions together. A couple of weeks after 3/11, he and Shirôto no ran (“Revolt of the Amateurs”) came up with the idea to organize a big Anti-Nuke-Rally. Keisuke Narita designed a blog on tumblr and started tweeting, and on the day of the rally, April 10th, more than 15.000 people showed up. No one had been expecting that. But I was only the start of something that might become a movement…